Rubber or resilient skirts are frequently mounted on the heads of tanks, such as beer barrels or propane tanks, to protect the tank from impact, as well as providing an anti-skid, anti-spark supporting surface.
With large size tanks it is difficult to vulcanize the rubber skirt directly to the tank head, so that it has been the practice in the past with aluminum tanks to vulcanize the rubber skirt to a metal ring and subsequently weld the ring to the tank head. However, with steel tanks this practice cannot be utilized because after welding it is necessary to anneal the steel tank, and as the annealing temperature is generally in the range of about 1400.degree. F. to 1600.degree. F., the rubber skirt would be destroyed at this temperature. In view of this, there has been a need for a construction for applying a rubber protective skirt to a steel tank.